Name: Matthew Wilson
Age: 36
Location: Sydney, Australia. (It's now 7:30 am, and sunnier and warmer
than it ever gets back home in England <g>.)
Background:

    - school / 6th-form college - was far too easy, leaving me to enter
Uni / work with an over-inflated view of what I could achieve with
little effort, and how much that'd be appreciated by
professors/employers. Bump!
    - 1 year Chem degree. Didn't like
    - 1 year working in chemical engineering company. Ouch! The real
world of work for someone without a degree proved a *lot* tougher than
I'd expected. No-one cared about my academic prizes, or potential, just
kept me on that bottom rung with their acid-proof boots on my neck.
    - 4 years Information Technology / Software Engineering. After the
nasty real world of work, this was an absolute doddle. I tutored several
friends in my secret exam passing techniques, and they all did really
well. :-)
    - 3 years PhD 'Photonic Packet-Switching Networks'. Much to the
chagrin of my mother-in-law, I did a PhD so I could spend three more
years riding my bike. And I did! :-) You'll probably not be surprised to
learn that I submitted the largest thesis in my department's history, or
in my examiners experience. He revenged himself on me by giving me a 4
and half hour viva. Even I find it a challenge to talk for that long.
Suffice to say the mouth was somewhat dry by the end ....
    - 18 months at a communications company in England. Thrown straight
into the deep end working on embedded primary rate ISDN servers and LAN
access cards. 128 tasks running simultaneously on a proprietary
operating system. Can't say I understood it all at the time, but
Win32/PHTREADS multithreading never scared me after that!
    - moved to Australia, got a job at company X, working under two
'architects' whose egos were considerably more impressive than their
technical and personal skills. The company liked to tread on people, or
isolate those who cannot be trod on. The manager bullied one of my
friends - she was a bit slow on the SLOCs front, but was very careful
and produced good quality work - which, in my resignation letter, I told
them 'was the last cherry on the sleazy cake'. Best resignation I ever
had. (Tip: Resigning a crap job, without another lined up, is one of the
most liberating experiences one can have.)
    - since I'd found the quality of management in my short career
patchy, to say the least, I decided I wouldn't have one anymore, and
became a contractor. A decision I've never had occasion to regret,
although my wife probably wouldn't concur.
    - did 3 months of a contract working on COM/DCOM/C++, but had to
return to England for a year due to a family tragedy
    - back in Aus, started my own company. Designed and implemented data
caching and delivery layer (C++ / COM / TibCo) for busiest transactional
website in the Southern Hemisphere - which gets a woo hoo! until one
realises the proportion of the world's population live that lives in the
top half - which have run without a single ms of downtime for the last
five and half years.
    - did a year for the world's largest data warehousing company. Had a
great working relationship with their Dev manager (also a pommie), with
whom I was tasked to adapt a parser base provided from the US parent
company to the Australian market. I can still recall the teleconference:
"we don't expect you to be able to make it fast, but just do your best".
Ah, underestimation, that most underestimated of stimuli. Within 3 weeks
we had a working parser infrastructure and several filters which
outperformed their 25-years-of-parsing technology both in speed and in
accuracy. Within 3 months it had become their company standard address
parser. How d'ya like them apples. :-)
    - next contract worked as Software Quality Manager for company doing
e-Commerce in J2EE. This was the worst organised / skilled (both
technically and managerially) client I've ever had. The only time I've
had occasion to shout at people in the workplace - usually because
they'd ignored the instruction to "only check in tested code" within an
hour of the daily morning meeting during which myself and the
Development Manager both stressed that. Tip: if you find yourself
shouting at people because of their incompetence / unprofessionalism,
leave. Now! It's hurting you at least as much as it's hurting them.
    - started working for a (former) friend on an internet related
startup. He said they could (and would) pay me. They didn't. We ended up
having a protracted legal battle, which I won. We've never subsequently
spoken. :-(  Tip: When working for a startup, don't let the payment
window stretch more than two weeks; as soon as it does, down tools and
find a proper job.
    - the great thing about the legal stuff is that, because it took so
long, we gained two valuable things: I had time on my hands to think
about what I wanted to do and to do it, and we learned that we didn't
actually need IT/internet-bubble level income on which to survive. By
the time the money came, we'd gone into survival mode, and were able to
live off it for most of the next two years, during which my publishing
career, such as it is, took off: I've written the book Imperfect C++
(http://imperfectcplusplus.com), and am a contributing editor /
columnist for C/C++ Users Journal (http://cuj.com) and The C++ Source
(http://artima.com/cppsource/). I'm about to start work on my next two
books Extended STL and, with Walter, D Programming Distilled.
    - since the completion of Imperfect C++, in July last year, I've
been working on a network infrastructure project for a large insurance
company here in Aus, in a disparate mix of technologies:
C/C++/ACE/TibCo/COM/WTL/Ruby/C#/C++.NET/. My components interface
several systems, providing the communications glue, arbitrating on
message destination between legacy mainframe and new system, auditing,
etc. etc. It's been a lot of fun, but not exactly the post-IC++ holiday
I had planned. Maybe when the next two books are done I can take it
easy. Tip: Make sure you're getting daily doses of sunlight and
endorphins when working really hard (especially when you're no longer in
your 20s), otherwise the body just gets gummed-up.

As for the future:
    - I have the next two books to write, and I've got plans for about
another 5. (Though I'm *never* going to do anything as hard as Imperfect
C++ again. NEVER!)
    - I look forward to releasing / updating several of my libraries,
including b64, DTL!!, recls 2.0, the next STLSoft (which has gained a
considerable number of components as a result of my recent project). And
doing decent documentation for them!!!
    - finding a better balance in life; being able to read the 50+ new
books sitting in my office (and the 30+ non-computing ones gathering
dust on the lounge bookshelf); getting back to the levels of exercise I
had a few years ago; spending more time with my kids; learning to play
bass in time for my kids to learn the piano and drums;

Eventually, I'd like to semi-retire from IT, write the odd book, and open a chocolaterie, though I fear my chances may be slim.

Oh, and it'd be nice to see even one of the world's biological systems brought back from decline. Otherwise our kids are not going to have the relatively easy lives that we have had, never mind getting to see The Barrier Reef in all its splendour.

Cheers to all in D-world and beyond

Matthew

As usual, an very interesting writeup, Matthew.

So the moral of the story: if you can make a happy, stress-free living as a garbage man, stick with that. ;-)

Success is one of those rare qualities that few people fathom.  Is success found by making a name for oneself in this world, or is it found in serving, supporting, or exhorting those within your realm of influence?  Which of these translates to true fulfillment?  I've had to meditate on these details in my own life.  It's nice to see a balance in such consideration as you have shown.

If you ever start that chocolate shop of yours, I'll have to stop in for a tea and Swiss chocolate.

All the best,

John R.

> As usual, an very interesting writeup, Matthew.
>
> So the moral of the story: if you can make a happy, stress-free living as a garbage man, stick with that. ;-)
>
> Success is one of those rare qualities that few people fathom.  Is success found by making a name for oneself in this world, or is it found in serving, supporting, or exhorting those within your realm of influence?  Which of these translates to true fulfillment?  I've had to meditate on these details in my own life.  It's nice to see a balance in such consideration as you have shown.
>
> If you ever start that chocolate shop of yours, I'll have to stop in for a tea and Swiss chocolate.

You'd be exceedingly welcome. :-)

> As usual, an very interesting writeup, Matthew.

Thanks. I'm thinking of gathering together such things into a small book sometime. Do you think that'd have much pull?

I think I'll probably start blogging on this stuff, and take it from there. wodayafink?

Andrew Fedoniouk.

I am a professional programmer since 1986. Fortran, Pascal, C/C++, Java and
various scripts. And my c:) of course
Education: MS in physics and applied mathematics and Diploma in Arts
(college level). Both in Russia. Precisely - in USSR (it was such country
who didn't remember). Started career in Russian aerospace industry. After
that were doing computations in medicine. After that in telecommunications.
And now my main areas of professional interests are design of HTML rendering
engines and GUI design in general.

Andrew Fedoniouk
http://terrainformatica.com
Vancouver, Canada

Matthew wrote:
>>As usual, an very interesting writeup, Matthew.
> 
> 
> Thanks. I'm thinking of gathering together such things into a small book sometime. Do you think that'd have much pull?

Yep.  I think people like reading about aspects of other peoples lives, especially their failures ;-) (discretely done; too many details can take the wind out of it). This needs to be balanced with narratives of successes.  One can't have the readers getting depressed.   I know some of the bizarre stories I bring home from work keep my family members entertained. Heh, I find the process almost therapeutic.

> I think I'll probably start blogging on this stuff, and take it from there. wodayafink?
> 

Like I said, I've enjoyed reading what others of contributed to this thread.  The human factor is fascinating to read.  I've always prefered biographies and auto-biographies to fiction.  Blogs seem to be "the thing" right now; they're especially interesting when their done by people with lives full of experiences and interaction with other people (and why do people watch soaps? <groan>).  Add a pinch of humour and nack for writing, and you've got it made.  You seem to be adequately endowed with both qualities. :-)

Blog away, my friend.

Later,

John

Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
> Andrew Fedoniouk.
> 
> I am a professional programmer since 1986. Fortran, Pascal, C/C++, Java and various scripts. And my c:) of course
> Education: MS in physics and applied mathematics and Diploma in Arts (college level). Both in Russia. Precisely - in USSR (it was such country who didn't remember). Started career in Russian aerospace industry. After that were doing computations in medicine. After that in telecommunications. And now my main areas of professional interests are design of HTML rendering engines and GUI design in general.
> 
> Andrew Fedoniouk
> http://terrainformatica.com
> Vancouver, Canada
> 

Hey Andrew,

Welcome!  You are only a few hours south of me (Williams Lake).

I know another Russian Programmer from Vancouver.

Later,

John R.

> Welcome!  You are only a few hours south of me (Williams Lake).
Yep, it's close. Nice place, btw.
>
> I know another Russian Programmer from Vancouver.
:) There are many of us here

Name: Regan Michael Heath
Age: 24
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Background:

I have been 'into' computers for as long as I can remember.

It started at age 8 with a battered old micro that operated with a tape deck and the television. I would get those 'usborne?' programming books from the library and would have to mix and match to find code that worked with my particular odd-ball uncommon brand of micro.

I moved on to BASIC on the first IBM we bought when I was 12 or something.
I also tried to program the Apple IIe we had at school at about the same time.

I didn't get into 'serious' programming until I was 18 where I was offered a job with a small company "Netwin LTD" as an alternative to getting formal qualifications.

I was taught C by the book "C Programming Language" by "Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie" and of course the people I now worked with. My education has therefore been almost entirely practical.

I have dabbled in C++ and Java and most recently D.

I did at one stage attempt to get formal qualifications, I managed to wrangle it so I skipped stage 1 university and started at stage 2, the 2 papers I did prooved to be almost totally useless to me and so I left.

I spend a large proportion of my spare time playing computer games, I intend never to 'grow out' of this. In fact I consider my ideal job to be programming computer games.

My current non computer related hobbies include Soccer and Music, I am in an Original Rock Band here in Auckland. In the past I have been involved in as many sports as I could manage i.e. Cricket, Soccer, Hockey, Volleyball, and Karate so I am not your stereotypical computer 'geek'. I am however a roleplayer, both computer and PnP which makes me an ever bigger 'geek' than most.

I have contributed very little to D as yet, the crypto hashing routines in Deimos being my only concrete contribution. I intend to continue to poke my nose into everything on this NG, adding my opinion and hopefully helping to shape D into the language we all dream of.

Having run out of things to say...

Regan

Regan Heath wrote:

<snip>

> My current non computer related hobbies include Soccer and Music, I am in  an Original Rock Band here in Auckland. In the past I have been involved  in as many sports as I could manage i.e. Cricket, Soccer, Hockey,  Volleyball, and Karate so I am not your stereotypical computer 'geek'. I  am however a roleplayer, both computer and PnP which makes me an ever  bigger 'geek' than most.
> 

I think few people in this field fit the stereotypical geek profile anymore.  Although, television and movies still feed the publics misconceptions in this regard.

The "hacker" era of the 80's probably was more concentrated with the old geek types.  Now, there's many more people and much more variety involved in computer science.

- John R.